• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.29-41
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• 2012

This paper undertakes a conceptual review of transaction cost to broaden the understanding of the transaction cost analysis (TCA) approach. More than 40 years have passed since Coase's fundamental insight that transaction, coordination, and contracting costs must be considered explicitly in explaining the extent of vertical integration. Coase (1937) forced economists to identify previously neglected constraints on the trading process to foster efficient intrafirm, rather than interfirm, transactions. The transaction cost approach to economic organization study regards transactions as the basic units of analysis and holds that understanding transaction cost economy is central to organizational study. The approach applies to determining efficient boundaries, as between firms and markets, and to internal transaction organization, including employment relations design. TCA, developed principally by Oliver Williamson (1975,1979,1981a) blends institutional economics, organizational theory, and contract law. Further progress in transaction costs research awaits the identification of critical dimensions in which transaction costs differ and an examination of the economizing properties of alternative institutional modes for organizing transactions. The crucial investment distinction is: To what degree are transaction-specific (non-marketable) expenses incurred? Unspecialized items pose few hazards, since buyers can turn toalternative sources, and suppliers can sell output intended for one order to other buyers. Non-marketability problems arise when specific parties' identities have important cost-bearing consequences. Transactions of this kind are labeled idiosyncratic. The summarized results of the review are as follows. First, firms' distribution decisions often prompt examination of the make-or-buy question: Should a marketing activity be performed within the organization by company employees or contracted to an external agent? Second, manufacturers introducing an industrial product to a foreign market face a difficult decision. Should the product be marketed primarily by captive agents (the company sales force and distribution division) or independent intermediaries (outside sales agents and distribution)? Third, the authors develop a theoretical extension to the basic transaction cost model by combining insights from various theories with the TCA approach. Fourth, other such extensions are likely required for the general model to be applied to different channel situations. It is naive to assume the basic model appliesacross markedly different channel contexts without modifications and extensions. Although this study contributes to scholastic research, it is limited by several factors. First, the theoretical perspective of TCA has attracted considerable recent interest in the area of marketing channels. The analysis aims to match the properties of efficient governance structures with the attributes of the transaction. Second, empirical evidence about TCA's basic propositions is sketchy. Apart from Anderson's (1985) study of the vertical integration of the selling function and John's (1984) study of opportunism by franchised dealers, virtually no marketing studies involving the constructs implicated in the analysis have been reported. We hope, therefore, that further research will clarify distinctions between the different aspects of specific assets. Another important line of future research is the integration of efficiency-oriented TCA with organizational approaches that emphasize specific assets' conceptual definition and industry structure. Finally, research of transaction costs, uncertainty, opportunism, and switching costs is critical to future study.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-21
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• 2020

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, various techniques have been developed to extract meaningful information from unstructured text data which constitutes a large portion of big data. Over the past decades, text mining technologies have been utilized in various industries for practical applications. In the field of business intelligence, it has been employed to discover new market and/or technology opportunities and support rational decision making of business participants. The market information such as market size, market growth rate, and market share is essential for setting companies' business strategies. There has been a continuous demand in various fields for specific product level-market information. However, the information has been generally provided at industry level or broad categories based on classification standards, making it difficult to obtain specific and proper information. In this regard, we propose a new methodology that can estimate the market sizes of product groups at more detailed levels than that of previously offered. We applied Word2Vec algorithm, a neural network based semantic word embedding model, to enable automatic market size estimation from individual companies' product information in a bottom-up manner. The overall process is as follows: First, the data related to product information is collected, refined, and restructured into suitable form for applying Word2Vec model. Next, the preprocessed data is embedded into vector space by Word2Vec and then the product groups are derived by extracting similar products names based on cosine similarity calculation. Finally, the sales data on the extracted products is summated to estimate the market size of the product groups. As an experimental data, text data of product names from Statistics Korea's microdata (345,103 cases) were mapped in multidimensional vector space by Word2Vec training. We performed parameters optimization for training and then applied vector dimension of 300 and window size of 15 as optimized parameters for further experiments. We employed index words of Korean Standard Industry Classification (KSIC) as a product name dataset to more efficiently cluster product groups. The product names which are similar to KSIC indexes were extracted based on cosine similarity. The market size of extracted products as one product category was calculated from individual companies' sales data. The market sizes of 11,654 specific product lines were automatically estimated by the proposed model. For the performance verification, the results were compared with actual market size of some items. The Pearson's correlation coefficient was 0.513. Our approach has several advantages differing from the previous studies. First, text mining and machine learning techniques were applied for the first time on market size estimation, overcoming the limitations of traditional sampling based- or multiple assumption required-methods. In addition, the level of market category can be easily and efficiently adjusted according to the purpose of information use by changing cosine similarity threshold. Furthermore, it has a high potential of practical applications since it can resolve unmet needs for detailed market size information in public and private sectors. Specifically, it can be utilized in technology evaluation and technology commercialization support program conducted by governmental institutions, as well as business strategies consulting and market analysis report publishing by private firms. The limitation of our study is that the presented model needs to be improved in terms of accuracy and reliability. The semantic-based word embedding module can be advanced by giving a proper order in the preprocessed dataset or by combining another algorithm such as Jaccard similarity with Word2Vec. Also, the methods of product group clustering can be changed to other types of unsupervised machine learning algorithm. Our group is currently working on subsequent studies and we expect that it can further improve the performance of the conceptually proposed basic model in this study.

• Korean Journal of Weed Science
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.210-233
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• 1993

The herbicide has become indispensable as much as nitrogen fertilizer in Korean agriculture from 1970 onwards. It is estimated that in 1991 more than 40 herbicides were registered for rice crop and treated to an area 1.41 times the rice acreage ; more than 30 herbicides were registered for field crops and treated to 89% of the crop area ; the treatment acreage of 3 non-selective foliar-applied herbicides reached 2,555 thousand hectares. During the last 25 years herbicides have benefited the Korean farmers substantially in labor, cost and time of farming. Any herbicide which causes crop injury in ordinary uses is not allowed to register in most country. Herbicides, however, can cause crop injury more or less when they are misused, abused or used under adverse environments. The herbicide use more than 100% of crop acreage means an increased probability of which herbicides are used wrong or under adverse situation. This is true as evidenced by that about 25% of farmers have experienced the herbicide caused crop injury more than once during last 10 years on authors' nationwide surveys in 1992 and 1993 ; one-half of the injury incidences were with crop yield loss greater than 10%. Crop injury caused by herbicide had not occurred to a serious extent in the 1960s when the herbicides fewer than 5 were used by farmers to the field less than 12% of total acreage. Farmers ascribed about 53% of the herbicidal injury incidences at their fields to their misuses such as overdose, careless or improper application, off-time application or wrong choice of the herbicide, etc. While 47% of the incidences were mainly due to adverse natural conditions. Such misuses can be reduced to a minimum through enhanced education/extension services for right uses and, although undesirable, increased farmers' experiences of phytotoxicity. The most difficult primary problem arises from lack of countermeasures for farmers to cope with various adverse environmental conditions. At present almost all the herbicides have"Do not use!" instructions on label to avoid crop injury under adverse environments. These "Do not use!" situations Include sandy, highly percolating, or infertile soils, cool water gushing paddy, poorly draining paddy, terraced paddy, too wet or dry soils, days of abnormally cool or high air temperature, etc. Meanwhile, the cultivated lands are under poor conditions : the average organic matter content ranges 2.5 to 2.8% in paddy soil and 2.0 to 2.6% in upland soil ; the canon exchange capacity ranges 8 to 12 m.e. ; approximately 43% of paddy and 56% of upland are of sandy to sandy gravel soil ; only 42% of paddy and 16% of upland fields are on flat land. The present situation would mean that about 40 to 50% of soil applied herbicides are used on the field where the label instructs "Do not use!". Yet no positive effort has been made for 25 years long by government or companies to develop countermeasures. It is a really sophisticated social problem. In the 1960s and 1970s a subside program to incoporate hillside red clayish soil into sandy paddy as well as campaign for increased application of compost to the field had been operating. Yet majority of the sandy soils remains sandy and the program and campaign had been stopped. With regard to this sandy soil problem the authors have developed a method of "split application of a herbicide onto sandy soil field". A model case study has been carried out with success and is introduced with key procedure in this paper. Climate is variable in its nature. Among the climatic components sudden fall or rise in temperature is hardly avoidable for a crop plant. Our spring air temperature fluctuates so much ; for example, the daily mean air temperature of Inchon city varied from 6.31 to $16.81^{\circ}C$ on April 20, early seeding time of crops, within${\times}$2Sd range of 30 year records. Seeding early in season means an increased liability to phytotoxicity, and this will be more evident in direct water-seeding of rice. About 20% of farmers depend on the cold underground-water pumped for rice irrigation. If the well is deep over 70m, the fresh water may be about $10^{\circ}C$ cold. The water should be warmed to about $20^{\circ}C$ before irrigation. This is not so practiced well by farmers. In addition to the forementioned adverse conditions there exist many other aspects to be amended. Among them the worst for liquid spray type herbicides is almost total lacking in proper knowledge of nozzle types and concern with even spray by the administrative, rural extension officers, company and farmers. Even not available in the market are the nozzles and sprayers appropriate for herbicides spray. Most people perceive all the pesticide sprayers same and concern much with the speed and easiness of spray, not with correct spray. There exist many points to be improved to minimize herbicidal phytotoxicity in Korea and many ways to achieve the goal. First of all it is suggested that 1) the present evaluation of a new herbicide at standard and double doses in registration trials is to be an evaluation for standard, double and triple doses to exploit the response slope in making decision for approval and recommendation of different dose for different situation on label, 2) the government is to recognize the facts and nature of the present problem to correct the present misperceptions and to develop an appropriate national program for improvement of soil conditions, spray equipment, extention manpower and services, 3) the researchers are to enhance researches on the countermeasures and 4) the herbicide makers/dealers are to correct their misperceptions and policy for sales, to develop database on the detailed use conditions of consumer one by one and to serve the consumers with direct counsel based on the database.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.261-268
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• 2003

Purpose: To report the results of curative treatment for patients with tonsil cancer by retrospective analysis. Materials and Methods: From Jan. 1995 till Dec. 2000, 27 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the tonsil received curative treatment at Samsung Medical Center. Therapeutic decision was made through multidisciplinary conference, and curative radiation therapy was favored when, (1) the patient's condition was not fit for general anesthesia and surgery, (2) the patient refused surgery, (3) complete resection was presumed impossible, or (4) too severe disability was expected after surgery. Surgery was the main local modality in 17 patients (S$\pm$RT group), and radiation therapy in 10 (RT$\pm$CT group). The median follow-up period was 41 months. Results: AJCC stages were I/II in four, III in two, and IV in 21 patients. The 5-year disease-free survival rate was 73.3$\%$ in all patients, 70.6$\%$ in the S$\pm$RT group, and 77.8$\%$ in the RT$\pm$CT group. Treatment failure occurred in seven patients, all with stage III/IV, and all the failures occurred within 24 months of the start of treatment. Five patients among the S$\pm$CT group developed treatment failures; 2 local, 2 regional, and 1 distant (crude rate=29.4$\%$). Two patients among the RT$\pm$CT group developed failures; 1 synchronous local and regional, and 1 distant (crude rate=20.0$\%$). The 5-year overall survival rate was 77.0$\%$ in all patients, 80.9$\%$ in the S$\pm$RT group, and 70.0$\%$ in the RT$\pm$CT group. Conclusion: We could achieve favorable results that were comparable to previously reported data with respect to both the rates of local control and of survival by applying S$\pm$RT and RT$\pm$CT. RT$\pm$CT is judged to be an alternative option that can avoid the functional disability after surgical resection.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.89-97
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• 2010

This study researches the effects of common features on a no-choice option with respect to regulatory focus theory. The primary interest is in three factors and their interrelationship: common features, no-choice option, and regulatory focus. Prior studies have compiled vast body of research in these areas. First, the "common features effect" has been observed bymany noted marketing researchers. Tversky (1972) proposed the seminal theory, the EBA model: elimination by aspect. According to this theory, consumers are prone to focus only on unique features during comparison processing, thereby dismissing any common features as redundant information. Recently, however, more provocative ideas have attacked the EBA model by asserting that common features really do affect consumer judgment. Chernev (1997) first reported that adding common features mitigates the choice gap because of the increasing perception of similarity among alternatives. Later, however, Chernev (2001) published a critically developed study against his prior perspective with the proposition that common features may be a cognitive load to consumers, and thus consumers are possible that they are prone to prefer the heuristic processing to the systematic processing. This tends to bring one question to the forefront: Do "common features" affect consumer choice? If so, what are the concrete effects? This study tries to answer the question with respect to the "no-choice" option and regulatory focus. Second, some researchers hold that the no-choice option is another best alternative of consumers, who are likely to avoid having to choose in the context of knotty trade-off settings or mental conflicts. Hope for the future also may increase the no-choice option in the context of optimism or the expectancy of a more satisfactory alternative appearing later. Other issues reported in this domain are time pressure, consumer confidence, and alternative numbers (Dhar and Nowlis 1999; Lin and Wu 2005; Zakay and Tsal 1993). This study casts the no-choice option in yet another perspective: the interactive effects between common features and regulatory focus. Third, "regulatory focus theory" is a very popular theme in recent marketing research. It suggests that consumers have two focal goals facing each other: promotion vs. prevention. A promotion focus deals with the concepts of hope, inspiration, achievement, or gain, whereas prevention focus involves duty, responsibility, safety, or loss-aversion. Thus, while consumers with a promotion focus tend to take risks for gain, the same does not hold true for a prevention focus. Regulatory focus theory predicts consumers' emotions, creativity, attitudes, memory, performance, and judgment, as documented in a vast field of marketing and psychology articles. The perspective of the current study in exploring consumer choice and common features is a somewhat creative viewpoint in the area of regulatory focus. These reviews inspire this study of the interaction possibility between regulatory focus and common features with a no-choice option. Specifically, adding common features rather than omitting them may increase the no-choice option ratio in the choice setting only to prevention-focused consumers, but vice versa to promotion-focused consumers. The reasoning is that when prevention-focused consumers come in contact with common features, they may perceive higher similarity among the alternatives. This conflict among similar options would increase the no-choice ratio. Promotion-focused consumers, however, are possible that they perceive common features as a cue of confirmation bias. And thus their confirmation processing would make their prior preference more robust, then the no-choice ratio may shrink. This logic is verified in two experiments. The first is a $2{\times}2$ between-subject design (whether common features or not X regulatory focus) using a digital cameras as the relevant stimulus-a product very familiar to young subjects. Specifically, the regulatory focus variable is median split through a measure of eleven items. Common features included zoom, weight, memory, and battery, whereas the other two attributes (pixel and price) were unique features. Results supported our hypothesis that adding common features enhanced the no-choice ratio only to prevention-focus consumers, not to those with a promotion focus. These results confirm our hypothesis - the interactive effects between a regulatory focus and the common features. Prior research had suggested that including common features had a effect on consumer choice, but this study shows that common features affect choice by consumer segmentation. The second experiment was used to replicate the results of the first experiment. This experimental study is equal to the prior except only two - priming manipulation and another stimulus. For the promotion focus condition, subjects had to write an essay using words such as profit, inspiration, pleasure, achievement, development, hedonic, change, pursuit, etc. For prevention, however, they had to use the words persistence, safety, protection, aversion, loss, responsibility, stability etc. The room for rent had common features (sunshine, facility, ventilation) and unique features (distance time and building state). These attributes implied various levels and valence for replication of the prior experiment. Our hypothesis was supported repeatedly in the results, and the interaction effects were significant between regulatory focus and common features. Thus, these studies showed the dual effects of common features on consumer choice for a no-choice option. Adding common features may enhance or mitigate no-choice, contradictory as it may sound. Under a prevention focus, adding common features is likely to enhance the no-choice ratio because of increasing mental conflict; under the promotion focus, it is prone to shrink the ratio perhaps because of a "confirmation bias." The research has practical and theoretical implications for marketers, who may need to consider common features carefully in a practical display context according to consumer segmentation (i.e., promotion vs. prevention focus.) Theoretically, the results suggest some meaningful moderator variable between common features and no-choice in that the effect on no-choice option is partly dependent on a regulatory focus. This variable corresponds not only to a chronic perspective but also a situational perspective in our hypothesis domain. Finally, in light of some shortcomings in the research, such as overlooked attribute importance, low ratio of no-choice, or the external validity issue, we hope it influences future studies to explore the little-known world of the "no-choice option."